Original citation: Socio-cultural Hierarchy in the Palace Language of Brunei Darussalam Permanent WRAP url: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/36931 Copyright and reuse: The Warwick Research Archive Portal (WRAP) makes the work of researchers of the University of Warwick available open access under the following conditions. Copyright © and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable the material made available in WRAP has been checked for eligibility before being made available. Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for- profit purposes without prior permission or charge. Provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. Publisher’s statement: A note on versions: The version presented in WRAP is the published version or, version of record, and may be cited as it appears here. For more information, please contact the WRAP Team at: [email protected] http://go.warwick.ac.uk/lib-publications SOUTHEAST ASIA: A Multidisciplinary Journal, vol. 9, 2009. © FASS, UBD SOCIO-CULTURAL HIERARCHY IN THE PALACE LANGUAGE OF BRUNEI DARUSSALAM Fatimah binti Hj Awg Chuchu & Mukul Saxena ABSTRACT Brunei Darussalam is a tiny Sultanate located on the north-western coast of the island of Borneo, wedged in between the Sarawak state of Malaysia. Brunei‟s national philosophy, Melayu Islam Beraja (MIB, „Malay Islamic Monarchy‟) reconstructs Brunei‟s history and invokes Islamic values to support the Malay Sultanate and monarchy, creating an inextricable link between Malay ethnic identity, Malay language (the official language), the nation and Islam. The adoption of the Islamic faith by the monarchs of Brunei in the 13th century created a superstructure to the institution of kingship, organization of the state and structure of society, on the foundation laid in the previous era by Hindu-Buddhist Bruneian monarchies. The continuity of the Muslim monarchy legitimizes Brunei‟s social hierarchy. This hierarchical relationship constructs a diglossic relationship between the official language, Malay, and the other indigenous languages of the country. This sociolinguistic hierarchy further manifests itself among the dialects of Malay, viz., Kampong Ayer, Brunei Malay, Kedayan and Standard Malay and Bahasa Dalam (the Palace Language). Although the speakers of all five varieties are unified by their adherence to Islam, these varieties are indexical of the hierarchical social identities in the Malay society. The Palace Language is characterized by its highly metaphorical expressions and a specialized form of address, highly marked by both verbal and non-verbal communicative characteristics. It is primarily associated with the royal family. As the ancient social hierarchical structure still persists, the commoners are also expected to use it as a mark of respect when addressing the Sultan, ranking members of the royal family and high officials. The forms of address in this language are shaped by both Arabic and Sanskrit influences, the former symbolizing more recent history of Islamic socio-cultural roots, and the latter constuting remnants of a distant Hindu socio-cultural history. This paper will focus on the Palace Language in order to describe and explain the socio-cultural and the historical characteristics of Bruneian society. INTRODUCTION The Sultan of Brunei symbolises the nation-state Brunei Darussalam in the consciousness of the world populace. People remember him as the „richest man in the world‟ once. Among the population of Southeast Asian region, the uniqueness of Brunei is inextricably linked to the Brunei Royalty, Brunei‟s wealth and its majority language, Brunei Malay. In this paper our focus is to show the relationship between the Royalty, Bahasa Dalam (the Palace Language – a variety of Brunei Malay) and the Bruneian socio-cultural hierarchy. We will start off by sketching a broad scenario of the Brunei Royal lineage, historical influences of foreign sociolinguistic nature and the Brunei socio-cultural hierarchy. Then we will show how this background is closely tied to the Palace Language. BRUNEIAN MONARCHICAL HISTORY The present monarch, His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu‟izzaddin Waddaulah, is the Head of State, the Head of Government, the Supreme Executive Authority, the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister, and the Finance Minister of Brunei (Brunei Yearbook, 2004, p. 29).1) A direct descendant of a Malay Muslim ruling dynasty stretching back 600 years, the Sultan is the 29th ruler 42 of Brunei. The perception of this continuity and Brunei‟s geographical location has had a profound influence on its sociolinguistic history. For centuries, Brunei was at the center of a busy, seaborne international trade route as a convenient stopover bay for traders. Its capital in Brunei Bay was an important regional trading centre attracting traders from China, India, Arabia and, later, Europe. Many natural products from the interior of Borneo and the South China Sea coast attracted international traders. Regional trading activities were facilitated by the coastal Malay vernaculars which acted as a court language and a lingua franca for centuries and later became the official or national languages of Brunei (Bahasa Melayu), Malaysia (Bahasa Malaysia) and Indonesia (Bahasa Indonesia) (Mohd. Jamil Al- Sufri, 2002). The identity of Brunei as a trading port and a polity is claimed to go back to as early as the seventh or eighth century AD. Chinese and Arab records point to the existence of a trading kingdom at the mouth of the Brunei River. This kingdom was referred to as Po-ni by the Chinese and is interpreted by local historians as the forerunner to the present Brunei Sultanate (Brunei Yearbook, 2004). In the early ninth century, this ancient kingdom was part of the Buddhist Srivijaya Empire of Sumatra (Indonesia). Then, it was subjugated by the Hindu empire of Majapahit based in Java. Later on, it became an Islamic sultanate when Awang Alak Betatar, a Hindu king of Brunei converted to Islam and became known as Sultan Muhammad (1408–1425), the first Sultan of Brunei. Under the fifth ruler, Sultan Bolkiah, Brunei developed as a maritime and commercial power in the eastern part of the Malay world. From the fifteenth to seventeenth century (under the reign of the fifth to ninth Sultans), the sultanate held sway over the entire island of Borneo and north into the Philippines. After the reign of the ninth Sultan, a period of decline followed, marked by disputes over royal succession and also the rising influences of European colonial powers in the region. This disrupted traditional trading patterns and destroyed the economic base of Brunei (Horton, 1994). In 1839, Sultan Saifuddien II put down a rebellion with the help of an English adventurer, James Brooke. As a reward, Brooke became the governor and later Rajah of Sarawak in northwest Borneo and gradually began to appropriate Brunei‟s territory. To prevent this and the expanding control of the British North Borneo Company over the territory in northeast Borneo, Brunei negotiated a protectorate status with Britain in 1888 and became a British dependency in 1906. The British Residency period lasted until 1959, when the first ever written constitution made Brunei a self- governing state. In 1984 Brunei Darussalam became a fully independent state. HISTORICAL FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON BRUNEIAN MONARCHY Brunei‟s geography and histories have exposed the people of Brunei to diverse influences over a long period of time. This fact underpins the particular socio-cultural and linguistic ecology that we see in Brunei today and explains the major influences on the politics, culture, languages and identities and their interactions in this context. According to the Brunei Yearbook (2002, p. 33): Brunei‟s culture is mainly derived from the Old Malay World.... Based on history, various cultural elements and foreign civilisations have had a hand in influencing the culture of this country... [viz.] animism, Hinduism, Islam and the West. However, it is Islam that has managed to wind its roots deeply into the culture of Brunei. It has hence become a way of life and has since been adopted as the state‟s ideology and philosophy. The combined linguistic and cultural influences of the Old Malay world, Hinduism and Islam are embodied in the official name of the country: Negara Brunei Darussalam, a unique identification marker in the system of world nation-states. It is believed that the word Brunei is 43 derived from the term Barunah. In classical Malay this expression stands for “excellence of the site for settlement, security, access and richness of the surrounding” (Brunei Yearbook, 2002, p. 58). Later, Barunah changed to the word Baruna, which is said to have derived from the Sanskrit word Varuna and refers to a nation of seafarers and traders in its Malay context.2) The word was further changed to its current form Brunei by the second sultan, Sultan Ahmad (1408–1425). The first word Negara originates from Sanskrit and in the Malay context means nation. The third word Darussalam in Negara Brunei Darussalam is an Arabic term for Abode of Peace. It was added in the fifteenth century by the third Sultan, Sharif Ali (1425–1432) to emphasize Islam as the state religion (Mohd. Jamil Al-Sufri, 2000). Although at the ideological level Islam is the guiding force, in practice, the position and action of the ruler appear to be legitimized by the combined elements of three traditions, viz. the indigenous, Hindu and Islam. As noted by Mohd Taib (1996, pp. 473-474): Although the Sultanate came into being after the conversion to Islam, it has its antecedents in the period of Indian influence in the region… the institution of kingship, was developed during the Hindu period.